Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

Entries from What's Wrong with the World tagged with 'choice devours itself'

Several stories all came up around the same time in the "choice devours itself" department. Readers to whom this concept is new may need it explained. I coined the phrase "choice devours itself" over ten years ago while writing for...

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Recall that choice devours itself when something worshiped by ideologues--usually death or unmarried sex--is first promoted in the name of "choice" and "consent" but then pressed upon those who do not or cannot properly consent, and the ideologues look the...

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Oregon Right to Life has been mobilizing callers and e-mailers early in 2017 against a new bill, SB294, that would raise the disturbing possibility of allowing the denial of ordinary food and water to patients who are able to eat...

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In the Netherlands, a female doctor knew that a patient with dementia had previously said she would want euthanasia "when the time was right." Then she developed dementia and wasn't able to tell anybody that the "time was right." So...

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It's always worth remembering that the worldview of the left is not, in fact, ultimately kind and gentle and loving. In particular, idealistic young Christians who are, shall we say, trying to learn from the left should remember this fact....

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California has decided to try the famed "Swedish solution" to prostitution--specifically, child prostitution. The idea of the "Swedish solution" is that if you decriminalize the selling of sex by individuals while retaining criminal penalties for purchasing sex and for trafficking...

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The bad guys are always up to more badness in the world of bioethics. Several weeks ago Wesley J. Smith highlighted some of the worst points in a "consensus statement" by a group of bioethicists. The topic was forcing doctors...

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Readers may remember the case of Margot Bentley in Canada. Margot had been an activist in favor of euthanasia and suicide and had explicitly stated that she wanted to be dehydrated to death rather than being kept alive if she...

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In one of the most blatant instances of the "choice devours itself" phenomenon to come along in a while, the Dutch medical association has written out guidelines on starving and dehydrating people to death that order doctors to continue dehydrating...

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Canada has recently legalized "assisted suicide," even carried out by family members, friends, or anybody, using prescribed drugs. Here's how it works. You induce someone 18 or older to ask for a lethal prescription on the grounds that he has...

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Here's an interesting little tidbit via Wesley J. Smith. An historian named Ian Dowbiggin wrote a book over ten years ago (2003) about the history of the euthanasia movement. I gather his portrayal was not altogether complimentary, though the description...

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I wish I had better news on this snowy morning, but I don't. Here are two bad items from abroad: Holland has officially relaxed its rules for killing people with dementia. (My own strong suspicion is that they've been euthanizing...

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I have three items to add to the "choice devours itself" list. To review, for those to whom this is relatively new: I coined this phrase not, as one might think, to refer to the totalitarianism of the left toward...

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So as not to be misunderstood, let me say at the outset that suicide is always wrong, gravely evil, that "assisted suicide" is murder, and that it would not make everything okay if euthanasia and assisted suicide were confined to...

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There are so many horrifying things going on in the world that picking something to write about is hard. One of the reasons I don't write about some of them is because I don't know what to say. This is...

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A few new items have popped up lately on the "choice devours itself" screen. Here's one: A surrogate agreed to abort one of triplets after she was arm-twisted by the "intended parents." The story does not say what biological relation,...

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It is with pleasure that What's Wrong With the World presents a guest post by Peter Johnson of the Acton Institute. (Bio at the end of article.) (Intro. by LM.) This essay is especially timely in light of the breaking...

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Just over a year ago I posted about the Vincent Lambert case when things were looking hopeful. It seems that I have dropped the ball somewhat in the meanwhile. As near as I can figure out, the people who want...

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Occasionally I witness liberals giving their views on sex education for the young and on what a sexually healthy upbringing looks like for young people. Here is what I'm hearing: Pleasure is everything, and so is consent. As long as...

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Another Thing You Can't Be Without Threats To Your Livelihood: Gay owners of a gay resort and a gay-friendly hotel -- who dare to speak politely with Ted Cruz. You really can't make this up. If I had said this...

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This article (HT Wesley J. Smith), which I was able to read in a somewhat mangled form via Google translate, contains a telling quotation from a Belgian euthanasia bureaucrat named Wim Distelmans: Manic-depressive patients, in their manic moments, the most...

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Regular readers will recall that I have identified a phenomenon that I call "choice devouring itself." This occurs when the left first promotes some choice as necessary in the name of individual freedom. Then, later on, this so-called "choice" is...

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I echo Wesley J. Smith's opinion of Julian Savulescu, though he puts it more nicely than I would. Smith says, Julian Savulescu represents all that I find so objectionable about the mainstream bioethics movement. Savulescu, just to give my readers...

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I blogged here about Margot Bentley and her family's desire to dehydrate her to death even though she is eating by mouth. The family is allegedly motivated by a desire to carry out her own former wishes; she was previously...

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The Belgian critical care association recently put out a paper justifying non-voluntary euthanasia. I have so far been able to see only quotes from the paper. (If some reader has access and wants to get me the whole paper, e-mail...

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Via Wesley J. Smith come two depressing items. I do not write about them merely to depress but to draw a parallel between them which may be instructive. The first item is this story about a woman in her 80's...

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Approximately six months ago I reported on this story: A family in Canada wants a nursing home ordered to starve and dehydrate Margot Bentley, who is an Alzheimer's patient, to death, even though she is receiving no artificial treatment but...

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Belgium's Senate just passed a law legalizing "chosen" child euthanasia. Apparently the law has a few more hurdles to go through; I don't know Belgium's legal system or how a law becomes fully passed. But equally apparently, this law is...

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It's a rare but instructive opportunity when someone acting out the choice devours itself dynamic makes his "reasoning" explicit. This recent editorial in the SF Chronicle provides such an opportunity. Economist and obvious social liberal Robert Leeson (who is a...

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Many of us who follow the biomedical scene with regard to right to life issues have long believed that the "right to choose" is really a one-way street. We hear all the time about the "right to choose" not to...

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Wesley J. Smith draws attention to this appalling article. Canadian Margot Bentley was, when she was compos mentis, a big advocate of euthanasia and other pro-death ideas. She wrote up an explicitly pro-death living will directing that she be euthanized...

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Wesley J. Smith has been keeping his readers updated on attempts to pass state laws authorizing doctors to put a Do Not Resuscitate order on a patient's chart without the consent of the patient or patient representative. An attempt to...

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In his fascinating book Merchants of Despair, Robert Zubrin tells the shameful story of how Lyndon B. Johnson pressured Indira Ghandi to enact draconian population control measures in India as a condition of receiving U.S. foreign aid. The quotas and...

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This appalling story shows just some of the things that can happen as a result of IVF. Here are just a few features. Some overlap with each other. --"Parents" who hire another woman to bear "their" baby, an IVF embryo,...

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I mentioned this situation in Belgium once before but am highlighting it again. Wesley J. Smith is often pointing out that surprisingly enough the Belgians are turning out to be the leaders in going completely off the cliff in the...

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I've been a bit tied up with other things and have not done much blogging (for me) lately, so I've fallen behind. Wesley J. Smith, however, has not fallen behind, and several of the pieces of news he has been...

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Epistemologists have a distinction between what they call methodism and what they call particularism. Particularism in epistemology is the idea that we start out with certain propositions that we just take as a given that we know--typically a fairly wide...

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Presumably people know that when they come to a site called "What's Wrong With the World" they are mostly going to hear bad news. This is inevitable and also very sad. We are now coming almost to Christmas, the time...

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A recent EU Court ruling means that Poland, which generally outlaws abortion but in theory permits it legally in cases of rape, is expected by the EU, on pain of recurring awards of damages to complainants, to make abortion not...

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I thought I would put this in a short update entry of its own, updating this entry. Christian readers, please pray concerning November 27. Judge Walker has been (inexplicably) permitted by the Nevada Supreme Court to continue his hearings on...

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Elisa Bauer, a mentally handicapped woman in Nevada, is approximately thirteen weeks pregnant. While Amy and William Bauer, her adoptive parents, are her legal guardians, she lives in a group home which does not keep very good tabs on her....

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Ah, the glorious choices feminism was supposed to offer women. The opportunities! The empowerment! Put your kids in daycare and have a career because it's your choice to do so. I remember almost twenty-five years ago meeting a Russian woman...

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Ho, hum. Another day, another outrage from the bioethics community. This one (or pair of 'em) gets a choice devours itself award. Remember that choice devours itself when you start by offering something as a benefit to a particular group...

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I have already reported on the United Kingdom's functional legalization of assisted suicide. To recap briefly, prosecutorial "guidelines" broadly hint (without quite promising outright) that those who assist the suicides of certain disfavored classes of people, allegedly at the request...

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Last week someone sent me a link to this article about Vice President Biden's outrageous recent remarks in China. J. Bottum asks why we had to send China a "court jester" "dressed in motley." In case you've forgotten, Biden told...

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Well, that didn't take long. Readers will remember my post on David Brooks's terminally clueless insinuation that we need to do something (he didn't seem sure quite what) to engineer the quicker disappearance of all those parasites, um, I mean,...

A quick review of the way the "choice devours itself" phenomenon goes in the abortion arena: 1. The pro-choicer says that women should have the choice to abort or not to abort their unborn children, because they should be allowed...

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Some of you may have heard something about the case of George DeLury and how he "assisted" the "suicide" of his wife, Myrna Lebov, back in 1995. DeLury eventually got away with a plea bargain to attempted manslaughter and spent...

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Wow. Just wow. I cannot understand why this has not received more publicity. Some of you have heard about New York City's attempts to harass Crisis Pregnancy Centers by forcing them to post big signs saying that they don't provide...

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Okay, legally astute friends, help me out, here. Live Action has released another video, this one from Virginia, showing a PP worker who doesn't bat an eyelash at giving advice to a man claiming to be a pimp and sex...

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Warning: I have not watched the video I am linking for this post, as I have not had an opportune "no children coming to watch over the shoulder" moment in which to do so. But I think it's important enough...

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If suicide is truly chosen, isn't the person who chooses it supposed to be compos mentis? If you gave a mentally confused, elderly person suffering from dementia an overdose of drugs, would that be a case of his committing suicide...

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The appalling story of "House of Horrors" abortionist Kermit Gosnell in Pennsylvania is something most of us prefer not to think about. And I am not in this entry going to include anything gruesome. The gruesome information is all out...

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(Okay, okay, I put the word "nominalist" in the title only because I couldn't think of a better one. Don't shoot!) There was a time, long ago, when I was young and rather too fond of playing the "There's no...

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Here is a story that contained some statements that surprised me. But before I start talking about the statements that surprised me, I want to emphasize something for my readers from the left: The things that I find outrageous in...

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Lifesite News has the story. The pastor, Joshua, had not indicated his end-of-life decisions in writing or appointed a decision maker for health care. He is able to breathe on his own and is partially conscious, able to answer some...

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Some readers may be familiar with P.D. James's dystopian future novel The Children of Men. It is a bit too dark and bitter for me to have been exactly fond of it, but it is undeniably powerful, and several aspects...

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Wesley J. Smith is a lawyer, and I am not. That means that I'm less hesitant than he is about using the word "murder" for various killings of the helpless and vulnerable. (He is careful not to do it if...

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I suppose this shouldn't really be a surprise, but it's useful to have it documented. In Flanders, where active euthanasia is legal, doctors are killing nearly as many people without their request as with it. The study (based on the...

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Long-time readers will be familiar with my interest in the "choice devours itself" phenomenon. (See here and here.) Briefly, a "choice devours itself" incident occurs when liberals connive at or turn a blind eye to coercion in one of the...

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This interview came out in 1994, but I heard of it first just yesterday, on Facebook, of all places, thanks to one of my FB contacts who posted it. Some of you probably know all about it: It's the story...

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I present the following deliberate overstatement to provoke discussion: If a man does not believe that his body belongs to God, he ends by believing that his body belongs to the state. Now, since I said that this is a...